Playboy back to ‘normal’; naked women are back as of the March/April issue

One of the dumbest experiments in magazine publishing history is now over. After a year of its new “non-nude” format and rebranding, a change which was absolutely slammed by most of the magazine’s long-time readers, Playboy is back to showing naked women starting with the March/April issue.

No, this is not the result of a Donald Trump executive order. This came from Cooper Hefner (the recently-installed “chief creative officer” at Playboy).

The general reaction of readers is summed up by the words “thank God.” Cooper is also reversing several of the other stupid decisions made over the last year, by reviving the “party jokes” page and reinstating the Playboy Philosophy column.

Of course, Cooper Hefner was never on board with the previous changes, anyway. He had even done a big interview with Business Insider to denounce the new format when it happened last year. This whole non-nude direction was conjured up by former CEO Scott Flanders and his underlings, all of whom are now out the door. They had taken everything that was ever good about Playboy Magazine throughout its history, including the jokes, the cartoons, the whole thing, and threw it all into the trash. It was akin to Cigar Aficionado removing all mention of cigars from its pages, or National Review deciding to go all-liberal, or Time or Newsweek deciding to go non-news. It was terrible.

The bottom line is Playboy is back to being Playboy again. And not a moment too soon. If this publication had kept this same nonsense going for another year, it would surely be in the grave.